Ben Saunders

Destinations Travel Show

I'm speaking at Destinations, the UK's largest live travel show this weekend. It's at the Earl's Court Exhibition Centre in London and I'm on stage at about midday on Sunday. Feel free to come along and heckle.

(And as if that wasn't enough, there's a repeat performance at the Birmingham NEC show on Sunday 6th March – I'm on at 3pm.)

— Filed under Speaking

Cool cyclocross photo gallery. I never knew so many geeks were into cycling! (From Matt Haughey's Ten Years of My Life.)

— Filed under Aside

Guided tour of the South Pole Atmospheric Research Observatory. (This is my favourite room.)

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And then I kick their ass.

Awesome interview with the US athlete Marlon Shirley on Radio 4 this evening. (45 mins, RealPlayer.)

'I've always been very apprehensive about people calling me a disabled athlete… We all have our own disabilities… some people's disabilities may be alcohol, may be drugs, may be steroids, may be personal or mental issues. Mine happens to be a foot. Now, when I go to able-bodied races, you can imagine what people think when they see me, like y'know 'that's good for you'. And then I kick their ass.'

— Filed under Inspiration

Refuelling

Last Sunday, a 22.5-mile run. Yesterday, a three-hour road bike session, followed by an hour of upper body weights in the gym. 0900 today: a three-hour hike with 25kg (55lb) rucksacks. 1400 today: Tony silences his rumbling stomach and stuns the waiting staff at our local Wagamama by putting away a specially prepared double portion of yaki soba (with extra noodles). The training continues…

— Filed under Training

As skiing to the North Pole gets tougher year on year as a result of climate change, Everest is apparently shrinking.

— Filed under Aside

Moleskine

Moleskine notebooks seem to be all the rage at the moment, and understandably so – they're lovely things, and if you don't own one, you should. A friend gave me my first Moleskine to use as a journal on my 2003 North Pole expedition – you can see it in action on the left, along with a few other tools of the trade – PDA, Iridium satphone, GPS, Kobold watch and a trimmed JNC chart.

I used an A5 Moleskine as a logbook/diary on last year's expedition – it had laminated navigation/timezone calculations, important telephone numbers and the codes for my ARGOS satellite beacon glued inside the front cover, while the wallet pocket inside the back cover held photos, letters and a few other sentimental bits and bobs. I started writing my diary in the front, and filled the back pages with lists of things I was going to do when I got home – books to read, films to watch, food to eat, improvements to make to kit, thank you letters to write and a whopping great 'life goals' list that stretched for several pages.

As you can probably tell by the rambling, the sponsor situation for the next expedition is still up in the air, so I'm keeping schtum for now. More on that soon, but for now, Robert Peary sums it up best:

'I cannot tell you how I long for the good old times when souls were a marketable commodity and always in demand by the Devil. I would trade mine very quickly for the money to get to work at once on my preparations.'

— Filed under Miscellany

The photographic journals of a fellow adventurer. (Link via Signal vs. Noise.)

— Filed under Aside

Maud update

20 janvier 2005 -

roller coaster

This night it shaked a lot. My little and precious bottle of mint has exploded in one of the boxes. Finished with the fresh savour and furthermore it???s all over there !
This morning it???s going up and down, and up again. OC??OR is passing from one hill to the other; he makes a grimace.
When we are on the top of a wave I have a look around to see if any vessel is coming.
I hold my paddles and try to keep the balance.

I am so buying this girl a beer one day. (As an aside, I've noticed she's begun to dedicate each day of her journey to someone. I wonder if she saw this last year…)

— Filed under Miscellany

A bumper selection of expedition video clips from one of my all-time heroes, Børge Ousland. (My favourite's the first one, with the Hendrix soundtrack. Awesome.)

— Filed under Aside

The largest iceberg on Earth runs aground.

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Pigiarniq – a free Inuktitut font from the Government of Nunavut (as used in my new snowflakey logo). The world's first Arctic font?

— Filed under Aside